"Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself."- John Dewey.
From the job market to tertiary education, from UPSR to A-Levels, Education in Malaysia focuses on bringing you the latest news and analysis on our nation's best bet on the future.

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Offers from Yale, MIT & U Penn!

Congratulations to 2004 SPM top scorer with 14 1As, Anushree Lalitha Subramaniam who received acceptance offers from 8 top schools in the United States including Yale University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

“I’m not sure why I’ve been selected, but one reason could be that US universities not only look at your academic achievements but also your extra-curricular activities,” said Anushree, who is currently completing the Preparatory Programme for Overseas Universities at Universiti Tenaga Nasional (Uniten).

Anushree, who hopes to double major in economics and music, is one of the three Bank Negara Special Scholarship Awards recipients who got full scholarships to pursue a study option of their choice without being bonded to the central bank.

I'm sure many of you readers out there have taken a similar route through either the overseas preparatory programme at either Uniten or at INTEC of Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) to gain entry into some of the top schools at the United States.

I'd like to find out more about these programmes, as having taken the 'A' Levels route through Singapore to the United Kingdom, I'm pretty clueless with regards to the preparatory programmes and processes here in Malaysia. I hope to compile the information I receive from you guys and put out a "roadmap" thingie for future prospective top students out there.

I'm curious for example, on whether these preparatory schools help you with the process through the standard SAT tests or are there other entry requirements etc. Is there are "managed" application programme by these schools to help students into the top schools or is it largely individual efforts. How is it that many of these students are still enrolled into some of the most mediocre schools in the United States? Are there special "channels" whereby these US universities accept the school's students en-mass?

1- How come she pronounced oxford as ox-FORD (think henry ford) on TV when they interviewed her? How the hell is she expecting to get there when she cant even pronounce it properly?

2- How come Bank Negara, for the first time ever, sends her to a college at UK when most of the other people stayed back here - notably Anushree. Her college there takes 2 years. And she went in last september, hence she will only finish it in June 2007.

3- How come she was sent to English classes at British Council for a few weeks for basic english classes?

All these sums up to a huge conspiracy of creating an icon.

She herself is also quite undecided - one moment she says she wants to go to oxford to study psychology ( if im not mistaken), then most recently ( end of last year) she said she wanted to go to Ireland to study medicine. Make up your mind lady.

The admission process is tedious if one is applying to multiple schools, tedious as in lots of essays to write. Besides that, the SATs are a must for top schools, TOEFL, some cases. One must also get a couple of teachers to write references, school reports and all. Last but not least, mail the academic transcipts over to the US. Detailed instructions can be found in the respective universities' websites.

SAT scores alone don't guarantee anything, actually it really depends on what the universities are looking for, diversity is their goal, they take a little of everything. For the applicant, it is some sort of a lottery.

Yes, sadly to say, INTEC and all the 1 year prep program are only for sponsored students. If you are not one, you'll need to settle everything by yourself, like the two individuals above.

Regarding Amazing Amalina, I heard from a friend of mine who is a MOE scholar currently doing his IB at KMB that amalina is in the UK doing her A-levels(sponsored by BNM), aming to get into Cambridge to do medicine it seems.

pschology at Oxford?............Tony speak up, I doubt oxford has a course on psychology............

She was featured in TV3's Remaja, she said medicine at Cambridge.

The three BNM scholars are free to choose whatever they like, BNM will sponsor their studies up to tertiary level it seems. The best thing is that they won't be compelled to serve the bank once they are done with their studies.

all i see is too many of the same old. undeserving malaysians achieving success they should not have, deserving ones who are pushed back because of certain policies. it's sad to hear such stories very so often.

on a side note, let us not talk about the top 5% who ultimately will gain success in their lives, but about the other 20-30% above average students who really worked hard to try and attain a better life. do not brush them aside for they are the bread and butter of the human capital in malaysia.

I must say that in the spirit of promoting helpful discourse, net denizens should try to confirm sources, check their facts and try not let personal feelings colour their opinions. All too often, ill will towards achievements of other people has tarnish the image of many average malaysians.

Whoa guys, sounds like many of you are venting a lot of anger here. If you want to test whether that person is deserving or not, why not wait a few more years and see whether that person can actually graduate from one of those university. I think that alone is good enough to tell you that there are some achievement. We all know that how the Malaysian 'scholarship' policy goes right? So no point whining, does who did well and didnt get it need to be more insistent plus the fact think of it this way, the moment you sign up for the 'scholarship' you are shackling yourself to the goverment. Kind of like a death sentence to me. Hurray.

Can't help noticing how desparate these Ivy League Unis are for foreign student funds and revenue. Unless they are giving full scholarships my advice is don't go or else you might get a big fat bill at the end of four years of study, not including the accomodation and travelling expenses. Amercia is an expensive place to be in and the foreign exchange disadvantage only serves to make it more pricey. So really getting places in all these unis is nothing to brag about just a marketing gimmick from the institutions desparate to have your money.

In terms of preparatory program at INTEC, I would say that the first few months were more focused upon preparing students for SAT1, SAT2 and TOEFL. They enrol there typically around June, and take their SAT1 around October. SAT2 in early December. They also do university applications during that period too.

In terms of applications, students there would do their own applications. What INTEC does is to advice students on where to apply, as well as help them post. The preparation of application comes from students, and hence, we can see that there are some students from INTEC that make it to some of the very top universities, while some do not really make it to the very top universities.

Another aspect is that some of the lecturers do help the students in giving comments on their application essays. And a number of former INTEC students, including myself, have been helping a number of them to give comments on their application essays.

American universities particularly the ivies are rich, if you can't pay for your studies, they will pay for you, provided you have applied for aid. If they can't pay for you, they just refuse to admit you, it is as simple as that. Australian and British universties are the ones who are desperate for foreign funds......................

Extremely true. They are the best in fund raising. I had friends in grad school in Australia and UK telling me the same thing as well. That is why they can afford to give out scholarships to the best to all around the world.

Pur.Boy

PS: No they are not that easy to get in to begin with. Even if they are not giving full scholarships, but if your parents can support it, do go, they will really open your eyes about the best of the best.

The world outside our boundary knows what is happening within our education system. Good students will always shine outside and similarly bad ones will be left behind.

Similarly employers know which are the goods ones and which are the bad ones whether they have the same no of "A" or not. The diploma can lie but ultimately an individual abilities, talents, skills will tell!

So what if you can't pronounce Oxford or Cambridge in the way that the Brits do?

What matters most is that you have the brains and the determination to succeed. Pronunciation is secondary.

And yes, the Ivy Leagues are bloody filthy rich. In fact, most US research universities are loaded with money. Harvard has an endowment of 20 billion pounds per year; in the same vein, Oxford and Cambridge each have an annual endowment of only 2 billion pounds. However, as far as Oxford and Cambridge are concerned, the sum of 2 billion pounds does not take into account the endowments of the constituent Colleges that form those two universities. If anyone's interested, do google 'The Sutton Trust' which makes a comparison between endowments of US and UK universities.

And yes, Experimental Psychology is a standalone subject at Oxford. And no, Psychology IS NOT part of the famed Oxford PPE bachelors degree.. PPE stands for Politics, Philosphy and Economics, as our host blogger Tony would gladly attest to that.

And as far as I know, Nur Amalina is will most probably be gunning for admission into the Medical and Veterinary Sciences Tripos (MVST) of Cambridge University for this coming October's UK university application session. In case anyone wonders, MVST is the preclinical phase for the medical course in Cambridge.

PPE or PPP, if you are the same "problematic" anon, you are one recalcitrant pillock! Aren't you ignoring your major slip re psychology at Oxford?

Those of you who have problems with other's pronunctiation, you are an ignorant and naive lot of bigots. Oxbridge do not admit students based on their diction. If they did, there'll be no African/Indian/Chinese/Malaysian (yes-lah!) students. At Cambridge, I shared a house with 5 others (HongKee, Greek, Ghanaian, Irish, PRCChinese) and each of us had our unique variant of "Cambridge". College life was just as wonderful!

While I am uninformed in matter pertaining to psychology, I do believe that a quick run through on the course contents of the two respective courses ie Exp Psy and Psy will yield some differences. In fact the names themselves will give you different pictures, one which is more general in terms of course topics, the other, more experimental with a little peppering of theoretical topics. One can take a look at the course contents of both the conventionally named 'psychology' program from other institutions and Oxford's 'experimental psychology' program and compare to see whether they are similar or not.

But then again, Oxford is weird, instead of engineering, they call it engineering sciences, so Exp Psy and Psy can also mean the same thing.

Anon is not wrong by saying that. Technically he is right, ask a lawyer and you will know why. Anon's choice of words makes his statement indisputable. In actual fact, Oxford doesn't offer 'psychology' as a course, it offers 'experimental pschology'. If you want psychology, then PPP is the way, which is a package.

On an unrelated note, Is this statement correct if we are speaking scientifically?

It's great to see that she got into all the top schools. And I think she very much deserve the BNM scholarship. However, one think I am angry about is that our scholarships are tenable at colleges like Ohio State University... schools that aren't exactly hard to get into. This says a lot about the things our government do.

What's wrong with The Ohio State University? The fact that it is not as hard to gain admission as the Ivues does not necessariyly mean it's not a good school. It's not whether you gain admission, it's whether you achieve the required proficiency to graduate. Remember, OSU is a large state supported university with an enrolment of almost 50,000 and is mandated to admit deserving students from the state of Ohio, so of course it's not as selective as the Ivies. OSU's programs in science and engineering are very well regarded, and is ranked among the Top 25 public universities in the U.S.

I have no vented interested in OSU, other than the fact that I am a Malaysian alumni of another state university (the University of Kansas) and I sense that Malaysians are too obsessed with the 'branded' institutions like the Ivies and OxCam and subjective "rankings".

The Ivies, MITs, Dukes ( no offence Kian Meng, still don't like your basketball program ;) ), Stanfords and the UCalifornia schools are not the only good schools in the U.S. There are a phletora of undergraduate/graduate programs where a lesser known college or a public school have better regard programs, ex. North Texas for Jazz, Carnegie Mellon for computer science, Rice, Purdue and Case Western Reserve (the latter two hosts a bunch of PSD scholars, I believe) for engineering as just a few examples. Even within the computer science field, you should pick a school that offers specialized programs, fielding leading faculties and research opportunities catering to your area of specialization, ex. UCDavis for computer graphics, KU for networking and remote sensing etc.

Bottomline is do your research, Don't presume to dismiss other schools just because you don't know much about them. I've got no problems if the government is sending students to any of the Top 100 schools in the U.S.

while i will not disrespect any school by saying they are of low quality (at least not in writing :)), i think the schools that PSD scholars end up at say a lot about the quality of the students PSD gives scholarships to. certainly i don't expect them all to enter Havard, Yale, Oxbridge and the like, but scholars should definitely be getting into schools in the top 50 at least (i also don't believe that much in rankings, but that is another discussion for another time), if this very select group is REALLY the "cream of Malaysia's crop"

The country and unis where JPA scholars go to is dictate by JPA. Some are really good but do not have the chance to get into US, if your luck is not there you may end up in Indonesia, Russia or India. Very seldom they send to US. After 911 incident the no. is getting smaller.

We have thrown doubts on the ability of our 17A student. If it is true that this top student has been sent for a basic English class, I believe that even the Ministry of Education has little confidence in our SPM grading system. The pronouncement part is in my opinion not important at this stage of her life. Many mainland Chinese, who went to the USA for higher education, spoke with strong accent. Some ended up being able to correct the problem.

We started talking about offers from top schools, but ended up wondering while our top students had been sent the "average" schools as well. I always hold the view that one does not have to graduate from the top schools to be considered the best. But if a top student is forced to enter a school through a prior government-dated arrangement against his or her wish, that is not right. May be we should withhold passing comments on schools that they do not know much about.

Hi. I'm currently undergoing the same programme with Anushree (she's my classmate). Well, you asked about how the preparatory programme helps the scholars here right? Well, I think those who ended up here are luckier in terms of the help given. Because of the smaller numbers of scholars here, the coordinator gives more attention to each scholar, I guess. We took SAT 1, SAT 2, TOEFL and will be taking AP (advanced placement). I think we here are the only students in Malaysia who take this exam (AP). Actually, this year in UNITEN, only Anushree and David Leong (both BNM scholars) are going to the US. They are the only students who had to go through the US universities application processes. They got enough helps from the coordinator and lecturers. For the rest of us here (YTN and MOE scholars), we are going to Australia or New Zealand. Kinda akward, taking all those US exams.. but will end up there.. Haha.. I am a MOE scholar, and proud of it :) I know there are something wrong with how they (PSD) select the students to get their scholarships. I know some deserving people who didn't get the scholarships.. and some undeserving lots who get it.. I hope, this year, this thing won't happen again. There are something wrong with our education system... hmm.. as a MOE scholar, I hope I can make some changes.. in the future..

I am a PSD scholar with 11 A1s in SPM 2000, currently in a top American uni. ( You have to mention that to some anon above )

I don't understand why someone needs to bash Amalina here. Either because she is Malay who happened to be a top scorer or because some people are just pathetically bitter.

Here are few simple reality checks for you:

1st) Jin Hock who received the highest grades in SPM 2000 was another above average student, not the greatest student either.He was awarded a place at MIT because he received the highest number of A1s in Malaysia. So many of his fellow friends at INTEC with much higher SAT scores were rejected by MIT.

2ndly) Only a small portion of Malaysian students who came to America ended up doing well here. Plenty of straight A1s barely survive here. That includes the best student of SPM 2001 from Terengganu who happened to be a Chinese with 1A in English 1119. Her GPA now...behold!!...it's barely 3.0.so, STFU.

3rdly) you must be kidding me when you say Chinese students from Mainland China know how to speak English. I have one TA from China and his English stinks big time. As we put here in America, "dear God not another TA from China please. Amen."

Ox-FORD or Ox-ferd.It sounds very pathetic when people who could communicate in English look down at others and say condescendingly how bad other people's language are.

You might wanna come to America and realize you have been referring the wrong “ketchup" all this while.

Conceited people make me sick.

Anushree is attending another uni with severe grade inflation. Good luck for getting As beforehand.

is it true that Amalina had been kicked from Cambridge for not being able to reach its minimum result requirement? wehehe. heard it from someone. but i couldnt seem to find anything bout it from the net.

heys to whoever that was in the same program with anushree,about AP, you are wrong on that part. there are quite a few students taking their AP's in malaysia, notably the international students.I took my APs this year (self-studied, just like my SAT IIs) at International School Of Kuala Lumpur as they were the only registered test center with College Board when I inquired. I was the only Malaysian taking it at ISKL (I suppose you guys must have taken it else where) and the rest were internationals (from Korea, US, Japan, Australia..)The subjects I took were : Calculus BC, Chemistry, Physics C: Electricity & Magnetism, Physics C: Mechanics.One might ask me why I took the exam when I didnt need to so early (just like my SAT II, which was taken 6 days before SPM 2005) and the answer I would give would be always the same. I took the tests because I will get rated and do know where I stand, even though those test are much more advanced for my peers. Cheers :D

(No I didnt get the PSD scholarship even though with straight A1's. sadly, it'll be a loss for the country.)

The problem with our country and everything else is this:Everytime we voice a complaint about something, in this case- the scholarship program if its a chinese complaining, the malays will think that its a racist comment if its a malay complaining, the chinese will think that they are just trying to protect their own advantages.this is a crucial reason why our country is not progressing at all.perhaps there is some truth to the race issues in malaysia, but to set up all these juvenile complaints about people who got scholarships out of mainly bitterness is just despicable. and then for someone to retort by using race as the main factor, chinese from terengganu, nor amalina, whatever- malaysia can and only will progress when we stop thinking in this narrow-minded spectrum. imagine if we had placed the names of these people as a, b or c. imagine if u cudnt tell what religion they were- will u still comment in the same manner?juvenile-our country can only progress when we and our government become malaysians and none of this malaysian chinese, malay or indian bull

Please do not criticise others. They are top scorers, be it. We should be proud of them. We should look in the mirror and question ourselves, why we are not selected to the top school ? If not, it does not mean that we could not achieve excellence. To achieve excellence, one must have high IQ, and also EQ. Spiritual intelligence is another crucial variable for success as well. I grad from a medium rank US univ, but currently more successful that my colleague from Ivy Leagues or UK top univ. Success is a combination of both IQ, EQ and spiritual. Choose the right religion, and you will tend to succeed in the spiritual space. What is the right religion ? Learn about all of them with the non-bias Guru or read history and know each religion well, then you shall make your own right decision. Rgds, Ahmed.

Why must we bash others around the head to make ourselves feel better?

Tony, most US students who want to attend the top American universities must take the SATs and SAT IIs (learn about them at www.collegeboard.com). These are pretty simple entrance exams, except that the English section may be difficult for Malaysian students without a good grasp of vocabulary. One could take them and get a decent grade without any sort of tutoring or mentor programs. SAT prep books are widely available online and in bookstores; however, they are a little on the pricey side. Our website, tinkosong.com, usually has requests for selling and buying second-hand SAT books, so interested parties can email for more information.

The programs taken care of by BNM or JPA (I am a former INTEC student) have much more mentoring involved. At INTEC, we spent the first 6 months of our time there prepping for the SAT exams. The prep usually just involves doing as many SAT exercises as possible and committing the SAT word-list to memory. SAT IIs are subject tests like Math I, Math II, Chemistry, World History etc. For the SAT II science subjects, a Malaysian SPM graduate will be very well-prepared; all he/she has to do is learn the syllabus over in English (not as hard as it sounds, if you have a relatively good command of English to begin with). However, if one is taking the IB or the A-Levels, most universities will accept the forecast results for both exams in lieu of the SAT IIs. My main point is that one can definitely get accepted into top unis via their own efforts - going to a program at Uniten or INTEC is not necessarily the determining factor.

US universities usually do not regard various "channels" as better than others. For example, taking A-Levels will not mean you have a better chance of getting into a university than if you took STPM. However, most top unis require one to have completed 12 years of high school (not 11 as in our system), so it would be advisable to take at least some sort of pre-U program before applying - This is the main purpose that the year at INTEC and Uniten serves.

Also, a happy note for ASEAN scholars - there is a higher chance of your getting into a top uni if you take your A-Levels at a Singaporean JC. This is because top US unis accept a much higher quota of Singaporeans compared to Malaysians every year, and having been in the Singaporean edu system for 2 years, you will be considered as a Singaporean applicant... yay!

There are other factors involved in applying for US universities - like need-blind, need-based admissions.. etc etc.

Tony, I would love to help you put together a road-map for applying to an American uni. So many people are confused by the (admittedly) confusing system. Please email me if I can be of any help to you.

i sense a lot of bashing and unsatisfaction here regarding Amalina scoring a handful of A's and her pronounciation mishap.I'll be really blunt here, those who are condescending and dissing other people's acheievements are complete bitter-stricken sourgrapes.I mean seriously,whats passed has passed.Stop questioning her pronouciation or laughing about her scores what not.Im sure she worked hard to get to where she is now, and of course hard work pays of.And im completely sure that those condescenders(regardless there is such a word or not *winks*) would be mad if others chose to belittle and condescend their acheivements.

Rather than dissing people and feeling high and mighty about it, its better if you go work on your potential.I dont think any of you people who are so keen on dissing others get 17 As or admission to Yale or MIT to begin with. So scoot!

As to the issue of getting into the worlds top and renown unis,i used to dream of getting into harvard and cambridge and all.But still,in my humble opinion,i think that what matters most is not the uni you get admitted into,but the effort you put to succeed,regardless if its a university here in malaysia or anywhere else in the world.To those like anushree who made it into one of the ivys,i say congrats and keep up the good work.

As to those who are good but didnt get scholarships,its simply a matter of 'rezeki',who knows what God has in store for you guys in the future.All the best!Im currently completing my pre-u in Sunway College under the sponsorship of PETRONAS, and bound for Australia next year to do chemical engineering.I pray for the best.

sure getting into an ivy league's a dream, but really, why do people go to uni? to find a good job and live happily ever after doing what you like and/or making bags of cash. That's the real reason. People remember Bill Gates as the man behind Microsoft, not as a college dropout. So if you get into Harvard, congrats to you, but for the rest of you, it all boils down to what you want to do after that post-secondary education. You could be some rich kid whose well-connected daddy got you a spot in harvard, partied around for four years and still are doing so while munching on your ginormous trust fund, but other than people raising their eyebrows when you mention which uni you went to, it only means something when you use what you have learned to make something of yourself. So stop hating the kids who get the As and the scholarships, i think they deserve to be in a good school way more than some kids i know.

well...guess what people?...amalina is NOT going to cambridge or oxford...she's going to university of bristol instead...i guess her english is not good enough to pass the interview for cambridge as well as oxford university...and i heard that 11 students from kyuem,had been offered to oxford and cambridge...impressive!

enough with the amalina bashing already. what a vicious bunch you are.

pronunciation is crucial, but not the most important thing in the world. most japanese and french can't pronounce the most basic of english words properly, so i don't see why we "high-class wan ah" malaysians are harping on such a petty issue.

by the way, amalina comes from some hulu kampung. we should be impressed that she even got straight As. bristol's a long way from wherever she came from.

well put, Pez. I realise now that some people just vent out too much pressure on the poor lady. Nobody's perfect. A united Malaysia will still have ways to go if we continue to be blind to whats alreadythere for all of us to take. :]

I'm an international student from Africa currently finishing my diploma in a Malaysian private college and stand a very good chance to be enrolled in a top university. After being in Malaysia for almost three years I did realize you Malaysians really think that English is almost everything,being a person who speaks,writes and pronounce it very well,I'll tell you that it essential but not the most important thing in education. What comes 1st when choosing a top student is their ability and clearly the Amalina girl has it. It's a big possibility that I might speak it pretty well than her but does that make me a top student?,i doubt,do all advanced and advancing nations speak it very well?,Korea, Singapore,Japan,Germany,Spain just to mention a few,the list goes on and on. My point is you Malaysians should focus on getting the best out of yourselves,thats how you are helpful to yourselves,others and your country in general.If a top student is given a chance to enter a top uni so be it,after all doesn't she deserve it? wasn't she accepted in MIT and the others? is it wrong if she gets some little help along the way? come on, I'm really surprised and saddened why a person should be judged because she can not pronounce Oxford well, does that make the rest of the world who say it very well better than her? or even close to be top students? Is it really her wrong pronunciation that big of a deal? I'm not sure about how biased the scholarship system is or education system so I can't say much in that area,but what i can certainly say is that English isn't everything, while it's very essential if you are enrolling in a US or any other English teaching university. The ultimate test is what you make of your studies. Thats where people should judge to start with.A great nation is made of GREAT MINDS. adios